"The ability to cook diverse food, to eat food from different places and cultures, is too often described as an enlightenment project, as a way to 'becoming' something else," Eric Ritskes has written on his blog Anise to Za'atar. Via the act of consuming, it implies, white Americans can better themselves. Still, every idea that challenges the norms of white American culture is couched within the easy notion that food cuts through it all, and that through food, we can transcend these issues. Shows like Taste the Nation, which use food to go deeper into migration, colonization, and assimilation, prompt people to think more deeply about the ways our cultural histories shape what we eat. An optimist could see this as proof that food allows disparate groups to understand each other, but as Jenny Zhang wrote in Eater, even the owner's resistance to changing his views despite his years of employing Mexican workers undercuts the buoyant promises of "breaking bread." But as nice as this idea is-as much as it inspires a wholesome image of a communal American table-who is this narrative meant for, and who does it ultimately serve?įood is complicated Taste the Nation acknowledges that, but through stories like this one, with the owner's dissonance between his restaurant's operations and his conservative ideology, the show suggests that the food these workers make somehow transcends personal and political lines, especially as it's eaten by white locals. Through food, we are all American-or at least, that's the tale these shows want us to believe. The language of "food unites us," as it's sold in shows and stories like these, suggests that because we eat similarly, our beliefs must be more similar than we think. Ultimately, the fact that everybody eats is mobilized to suggest that food is the great unifier: I eat tacos, and you eat tacos therefore, we can find common ground through our shared appreciation of tacos, no matter our points of division. Lakshmi talks to people from all these groups about why they eat what they do, and what stories food can tell about their communities. The brainchild of Lakshmi, who moved to the United States from India at the age of four, Taste the Nation has the stated premise of being a show about immigrants: from the Mexican American community in El Paso, Texas to the Gullah Geechee people of South Carolina to the Indian immigrants who've created the Little India in Jackson Heights, Queens to the German descendents in Milwaukee to the Peruvian enclave of Paterson, New Jersey and more.
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